


to find my way to you

by 26miledrive



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:42:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26miledrive/pseuds/26miledrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Max goes out and gets hammered, just because he knows how much Chara hates it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to find my way to you

**to find my way to you**

Sometimes Max goes out and gets hammered, just because he knows how much Chara hates it.

Not drinking, Chara doesn’t hate _that_. Fuck no, Chara can drink him under the table if he wants and not even look drunk, doesn’t slur his words or stumble or act like an idiot. Maybe his eyes are a little less guarded, his English a little harsher, but that’s about it. It doesn’t happen all that often, though, because when Chara decides to indulge in something, it’s usually not vodka.

That’s why Max goes out to the bar and gets drunk. Chara is just so overwhelming, and it’s not just his physical size--for the most part, Max’s used to that. It’s everything else; the way Chara’s eyes follow him constantly, his voice deafening and commanding even though he barely ever raises it, his approval (or lack thereof) felt like a physical touch. And then there’s how much Chara touches him--Max would almost call him _handsy_ , but that isn’t exactly the right word. It’s too suggestive of casualness, of playfulness, and it lacks the _intensity_ of Chara’s affections.

All of which are focused solely on _Max_.

So getting drunk is an escape, a way to exert control--or at least, a way for Max to pretend that’s what he’s doing. He drives too fast, windows down, blaring music that Chara barely tolerates at levels he would expressly forbid. At the bar he drinks cheap beer and good vodka, because Chara’s spoiled him; he’s got good stuff in the freezer, in bottles straight from Russia without labels. While he’s there he can feel Chara through the bond they share; checking in, admonishing him to stop drinking, wryly amused at his “pitiful attempt to feel in control, _moje šteňa_.”

Max ignores him for the most part, committed to drinking more and listening less. And he’s good at it, both the ignoring and the drinking, and he flirts with anyone who will pay attention to him, men and women both, and for awhile, he feels good. Strong. In control. _Free_. Sometimes he gets in bar fights, kisses strangers in the alley, smokes cigarettes he bums from other people. Tonight, he’s just throwing back the drinks and taking it all in--people who don’t think they own him, people who don’t know his name, people who don’t know he’s a werewolf. A face in the crowd, a drunk face, and it’s nice not to have a single person paying him any attention whatsoever.

And then, between the sixth beer and the sixth vodka shot--cheap now, the house vodka, he’s too drunk to care what it tastes like--he stops feeling any of those things. Everyone seems strange, laughter brittle and sharp, like they’re laughing at him, maybe. The music is just empty noise and the smoke stings his eyes, but he resists opening back up that bond for as long as he can, holds out until it hurts that he’s alone in his head and he can’t stand it anymore. Now all he wants is the thing he was trying to get away from, and it makes him angry and belligerent and sad.

 _Chara. Chara. I’m drunk. I think. Maybe._

 _Yes, Max. You were drunk six drinks ago._ Chara’s voice is patient, empty. Max has no idea if he’s mad, which means he probably is. He fumbles for his wallet to pay his tab, fingers drumming against the slick wood counter of the bar while he waits for the bartender to run it for him.

 _You’re coming home now._ It’s not a question, so Max doesn’t bother answering. Instead, he signs his name in a quick, hasty scrawl on the receipt and stands up, fights a wave of dizziness and makes his way towards the door.

There’s already a cab outside waiting, parked next to the curb. Max doesn’t bother checking to see if it’s for him or not, he knows it is. He climbs in with a muttered greeting, then falls silent and leans his head against the glass. He can’t close his eyes because he’ll get sick, so he just watches the night fly by in a whirl of colors, torn between wishing he’d never left and never had to go back.

* * *

The house is cool and quiet, a stark contrast to the loudness of the bar. Max toes his shoes and socks off in the entrance-way out of habit, kicking them aside carelessly. He promptly trips over them on his very first step towards the kitchen, drunk enough that he stumbles and nearly falls over. He hasn’t bothered turning on a light; the high ceilings make it feel like the shadows go on forever, like there’s nothing between him and the night.

Max walks barefoot into the kitchen, the hardwood slick beneath his feet, the kitchen tile cold. “We live in a cave,” Max mutters, to no one in particular, grabbing at the fridge. He pushes aside the bottles of water he knows he should drink, looking for beer, a Coke- he wants something that’s not healthy, not good for him.

He’s reaching for a Miller Lite when the hair stirs on the back of his neck and a buzzing, electric _thrill_ chases heat down his spine and into his stomach. His fingers are wrapped around the glass neck of the beer, but as he straightens he grabs a bottle of water instead.

 _Unhealthy and not good for him_ just walked in, so that’s covered.

Chara sighs, like maybe Max said that out loud instead of just thinking it. Max isn’t trying at all for mental privacy--he’s had too much liquor, there’s no point--so he probably heard Max thinking it, but Max doesn’t really care. He’s used to Chara invading his personal space in every possible way.

“I’m bad for you, and the alcohol isn’t?” Chara is still standing half in shadow, Max can barely make him out; a tall, lanky shape leaning against the wall, face hidden.

“I wouldn’t drink so much if it weren’t for you.” That sounds like he’s in a _Lifetime_ movie or on an episode of _Montel Williams_ , but at the moment he means it completely. Max jumps up on the counter and unscrews the cap, tosses it towards the general direction of the trash can. Which is behind the closed door in the pantry, so apparently the liquor isn’t stopping his desire to be bratty.

“Is there something that does that?”

“Stop reading my mind,” Max snaps, taking a long drink from his water bottle. He doesn’t want this, he wants that Miler Lite. But he can feel Chara’s influence, heavy-handed as if he’s holding Max’s wrist, making him drink the water instead.

“Stop thinking so loudly. Okrem toho, budete nosiť svoje myšlienky na tvár, moje šteňa.”

Max makes a face. “Insult me in English, please.”

“It wasn’t an insult--though you would probably think so.” Chara crosses towards him, easy and unhurried, but still closing the distance in three or four steps. Chara nods towards the bottle of water. “Finish that.”

Max puts the bottle in his mouth, but instead of taking a drink, he elects to do something obscene with his tongue to the top.

Chara laughs, and it somehow fills all the empty space without being loud. “I don’t think so--you’ll pass out before I get your pants off.”

Max kicks his feet back against the cabinet. “You’re always saying you like a challenge.”

“Getting your pants off is not a challenge, Max.”

Max tilts his head up--Chara is standing right in front of him, now, but Max still has to do that to see him. He keeps his face straight, but he reaches out and wraps his legs around Chara’s hips, yanking him closer with his heels. “Want me to make it one?”

Chara’s looking at him with his usual intense focus, but there’s a restlessness there, too, that Max hates admitting that he likes. It says _I want you_ and _I own you_ and _you’re mine_ , but it also says _I don’t care how bratty you are or how much you try to get away, I won’t let you go, you’re never too much and you can always come back home._ And that’s why Max went out drinking; he’s not supposed to like anything about this man, not after what he did to him, but god help him --that makes him feel so _safe_.

“And what did I do to you?” Chara asks him, leaning down, fingers nimbly grabbing the water bottle out of Max’s hand and setting it aside. His mouth is on Max’s neck, barely touching.

Max leans forward, resting his forehead on Chara’s shoulder as Chara’s mouth presses harder, teeth nipping at Max’s skin. Chara has a thing for his neck. It makes Max dizzy so he closes his eyes, but that only makes his head spin worse. His hands come up and fist in Chara’s shirt, holding tight. “Bit me and turned me into a werewolf?”

“Oh.” Chara’s smile curves slow against Max’s throat. “That.”

Max’s voice is more breathless than mocking. “Yeah, _that_.”

“Did you want me to apologize?”

Max scowls. As if he would, even if Max said he wanted him to. “Do I look stupid?” Chara is laughing again, a rush of warm breath against his ear and that’s not _fair_. “Don’t answer that.”

“All right.” Chara kisses him below the ear, shiver-light, hands sliding down to Max’s hips. “You should go to bed.”

Max pulls away and gives Chara a wary, suspicious look. There’s no _we_ in that sentence, and after all this teasing, there damn well better be. “Yeah, _we_ should,” he agrees, pushing forward, grabbing Chara by the back of the neck to pull him down and kiss him. Chara lets him and Max gets lost in it, aggressive and pushy now, wanting the same thing he’d run away from earlier. Wants Chara’s hands on him, all over him, wants Chara to fuck him into the mattress until he can’t breathe.

Or over the counter. Against the wall. On the cold tile floor. Max doesn’t much care which.

Chara seems on board with this idea--at least, certain parts of him do. Max throws all his weight forward, because one thing about Chara being a constantly looming presence is that Max knows Chara will catch him. And he does, easily enough, and Max untangles his legs and slides down Chara’s body. He’s unsteady from the liquor and arousal, and it’s not graceful or sexy in the slightest but it gets the job done, gets his point across.

Not that it matters. Chara doesn’t do the logical thing and fuck Max senseless, even though Max hardly needs their bond to know how badly they both want it. Instead, he puts his hands on Max’s shoulders, kisses him hard, then spins him around and shoves him face-first into the fridge.

The spinning is a bad idea, and his equilibrium points this out by fucking off completely for parts unknown. Max is busy telling it to come back, so he doesn’t realize that his arms are pinned and Chara is pressed up against him, growling in a way that says _you, Max, are in trouble_ instead of _you, Max, are going to get fucked against this kitchen appliance._

“Hey,” Max manages weakly, kicking at the fridge in frustration. He’s forgotten his feet are bare, ow. “I was kidding about making it a challenge, I’m kind of drunk, can we maybe save that for tomorrow...?”

“Shh. Quiet.”

Max is drunk, and horny, and he’d probably be pretty okay with following directions if they were _get on your knees, Max_ or _suck me off, Max,_ or even _get yourself off and tell me how bad you want it, Max,_ and Chara always has to work for that last one. But being told to be quiet, being _shushed_? Max is never drunk enough to want to obey that particular order. Not without a fight.

“Why? I have to be quiet for you to fuck me, now, Z? Since when?”

Chara shoves his knee between Max’s legs and growls again, shoulder-checking him against the fridge. “Since I told you to.”

Max laughs, trying to look at Chara over his shoulder. “Did you forget who I am?” He still doesn’t get it, still thinks this is about sex and is still being playful along with difficult. Chara likes that, he does, and the nice thing about their bond is that he can’t lie about it to Max.

Sometimes it’s nice to not be the only one laid open, soul-bared and without secrets, no walls left to hide behind. And Max likes being able to push and knowing Chara can take it. It’s times like these that he wonders why he runs off in the first place, when this seems like a really good arrangement they’ve got going.

He usually remembers once he’s sober, or at the very least, after he gets laid.

This isn’t about sex, though, which Max finally understands when Chara puts his mouth against the back of Max’s neck and _growls_ ; low, threatening, completely inhuman. It vibrates through Max’s body with the force of a whip, finds that part of him that’s _other_ and wakes it up like a cannon shot. It happens fast, and nothing--not all the vodka in Russia, not all the beer in Milwaukee--makes Max as dizzy and light-headed as this.

He bows his head as much as he’s able, the desire to _submit to your alpha_ overshadowing everything--even being a smartass. Chara is still growling against his neck, lower now and quieter, but Max is hyperaware of it and he doesn’t move a muscle or speak, just pants softly ( _like a dog_ ) and waits.

Max doesn’t much like this--or he won’t, when the wolf quiets back down and he’s himself again--but there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s too instinctual for him to fight, but it’s also a lot easier for him to realize he’s been in trouble the whole time, there’s been nothing playful about Chara at all since Max walked in the door. Max hadn’t been paying attention to the right things.

Chara huffs against the back of Max’s neck, bites him lightly on the side of his mouth. Max doesn’t try to kiss him--this is partly out of stubborn, sulky human orneriness and partly out of subdued, horrified wolf etiquette.

It’s all parts annoying, but what can he do?

 _All_ parts of Chara are pleased; the human that he got Max to shut up, the wolf that he got Max to submit. “Good,” Chara murmurs. “That’s good, _šteňa_.”

Max is irrationally annoyed that Chara left the _my_ off of that, because that at least makes it an endearment-- _my puppy_ \--and not a point of fact. Chara wants something from him, but Max isn’t going to try and even guess what it might be. He’s tired, anyway, and at this point he’s pretty sure he’s not getting laid. He’s not even sure he’s going to get to sleep in the _bed_ ; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s spent the night curled up on the floor next to it.

At least he gets blankets and a few pillows, now, when that happens--he didn’t, at first. Chara made him earn it through good behavior. Chara also kept him in a collar and leash, and made him earn taking them off by not trying to claw Chara’s eyes out.

Chara is a fucking bastard, and Max hates him. Especially for the part where he’s not going to get laid.

“Mmm.” Chara licks his neck. “You did look pretty in that collar. Maybe I’ll put that back on you, just for fun.”

Max doesn’t actually mind that, but the wolf does--he makes a low, whining noise and tries to bow his head even further, tilts his head to the side to show his throat, tries any other gesture he can think of that will convey to Chara that it’s not necessary. Max might be into kinky shit with collars, but the wolf just hears _bad_ and _disappointed_ and _punishment_. The wolf’s idea of fun and Max’s idea of fun, sometimes they don’t quite mesh.

Chara’s a fucking bastard, but he’s a good wolf. He’s better at separating the two parts of himself, or maybe he’s better at _not_ separating them, because he can tell he’s made a mistake and he stops, nuzzles at Max’s hair above his ear and murmurs, “ _ľahko, šteňa. ľahko, teraz,_ ” which Max doesn’t understand but takes as _calm down_.

Max breathes out, nods once to show he gets it, then just waits for Chara to move and let him go. Chara holds him still with his mouth at Max’s neck for a few more seconds, and then he says, “You’re not going to do that again, Max. Are you?”

Max knows damn well _that_ means _go out and get drunk_ , just like Chara knows damn well that Max probably will do it again. And that means he can’t lie and say _no, I won’t,_ because wolves don’t lie, especially to their alpha. And so he just stands there awkwardly, and Chara asks him twice more, and still Max is quiet and feeling like he wants to throw up or punch something.

Chara has a lot of patience. He can actually sit through a movie without getting up two or three times, he can do sudoku puzzles, he can listen to Ference get drunk and go on about recycling for forty-five minutes straight without missing a beat. So he’s definitely going to outlast Max, who can’t get through _previews_ without getting up a few times, hasn’t figured out what the hell a sudoku puzzle _is_ and once told Ference recycling was for pussies just to shut the guy up.

There’s only way to end this. Max has to say, _no, I won’t go out and get drunk as a poor way to exhibit my need for the space you won’t let me have,_ and actually mean it. And then if he ever _tries_ to go get hammered out of spite again, all Chara has to do is remind him how he said he wouldn’t. Then Max will be physically unable to act on the childish, self-destructive desire to get drunk because his alpha-werewolf boyfriend has separation anxiety.

“It’s not _me_ that has separation anxiety, _moje šteňa_.”

“Yeah, because you won’t let me _go_ anywhere,” Max grouses, and the wolf doesn’t like that he just said that but the wolf can fuck off for a minute. Chara can call him _my puppy_ all he wants, but Max isn’t actually his pet. Goddamn it. He’s _not_.

“No--I won’t let you _run away_.” Before Max can puzzle out the difference, Chara’s voice sharpens. “Now answer me, Max. Promise me.”

Max tries, he does. “I promise I won’t run away.”

He gets a bite on the neck for that, and that’s what finally does it. All his human pique seems to vanish, and the harder Chara bites him, the more Max thinks like a wolf. Chara’s growling again, teeth digging in hard and not letting up, worrying at the skin so that it hurts more.

Max fights it just a little more, because even wolf!him is kind of a brat. He makes it about three or four more minutes longer, until Chara’s biting him so hard Max is pretty sure he’s bleeding. Max is panting, making noises he will _not_ call a whimper, thank you, and kicking the bottom of the fridge with the ball of his foot.

Chara bites one last time and body-checks him into the fridge. “Say it, Max.”

“No,” Max bites out, finally. “I won’t do it again.” The relief in giving in is immediate; the wolf is happy, and Max’s arm is no longer twisted at an unnatural angle.

Chara lets go of Max’s arms and stops biting him immediately. Max rests all his weight forward, palms pressed flat against the surface of the fridge, and he stays there and breathes while Chara licks the back of his neck. His skin is bruised and probably bloody, and it should be weird or even gross, but it’s not. It’s relaxing, and Chara is happy, and for the moment Max is tired of fighting.

“Good, Max.” Chara pulls back, rubs a hand low on Max’s back and tugs at him to turn him around. “You can go to bed now.”

Max just nods, sleepy, swaying a little on his feet. “Okay.” He doesn’t move towards the door, just stands there looking around and running a hand through his hair. He can’t meet Chara’s eyes, doesn’t want to try.

Chara sounds very, very happy, which normally would piss Max off and probably will when he thinks about this tomorrow. Right now, he lets Chara pull him close and kiss him, warm and easy. “You can sleep in the bed. At the bottom, though. ”

“Yeah, okay.” The foot of the bed isn’t the floor, so that’s something. And maybe he’ll get laid in the morning.

Chara kisses him again, rougher this time. “Yes, probably. If you ask me nicely.”

Max still can’t meet his eyes--that display of dominance made sure of it--but he nods again, hooks his hand around Chara’s neck and presses his face against his shoulder for a second. Max isn’t sure if it’s him or the wolf that wants the contact, maybe both. He doesn’t much care which, he just wants it. “Night, Z.” He can’t quite make himself say _I’m sorry_ , but they both know that’s what he means.

Just like Chara’s, “Good night, Max,” means _I forgive you._

Until the next time. They’ll have this fight again, they always do, and only time will tell if it’s worth it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation: _Okrem toho, budete nosiť svoje myšlienky na tvár, moje šteňa_ = “Besides, you wear your thoughts on your face, my puppy.” 


End file.
